After 13 students under 10 years were killed when a speeding train rammed into their school van at an unmanned rail crossing in Uttar Pradesh, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal held a high level meeting to discuss a mission mode plan to eliminate unmanned railway crossings across the vast railway network.
"A multipronged strategy is now planned to eliminate the remaining unmanned crossing which will include manning, construction of Railway Under Bridges (RUBs), Railway OverBridges (Railway Over Bridges), diversion," a ministry official said.
Progress of elimination of unmanned crossings would also be shared transparently online through a website to increase accountability and public monitoring.
The official said that the target for eliminating unmanned crossings in 11 zones will be September 2018 while for the remaining five zones, targets will be set shortly.
According to ministry officials in last few years the average rate of elimination of unmanned crossing has also increased by nearly two thirds over the last four years. Now only 3,479 unmanned crossing remain on the broad gauge network.
--IANS
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